Why Lie? We Don't Go Together!

As usual, I have to begin every entry on life, love, and dating with the way I have made ginormous mistakes and, eventually, learned from them.  In that spirit, I need to begin this particular topic with a guy we'll call Adonis (names have been changed to prevent legitimate legal action LOL).  I met Adonis online a few years ago and we met at a diner in Brooklyn.  He's really kind of attractive and, when I was younger and fully and ridiculously stupid, those sorts of things clouded my judgment.....but not my ability to sniff out bullshit.  That skill will remain sharpened at all times no matter how fine a guy is LOL!

But I digress.  Adonis was hot and he seemed normal as we ate some breakfast at The Arch.  But then my (thank you Katt Williams for this term) N**** Spidey Sense started to go off as he spoke.  As a general note, guys (and gals, for that matter) will likely tell you EVERYthing you need to know within the first 14 days of meeting and talking to them.  It's a fact.  My friends and I have proven this time and time again.  Adonis was no different except it didn't take 14 days.

It took 35 minutes and employed the tried and true intentional, vague misdirection.

Adonis referred to his "ex" a few times and mentioned, sort of casually, that he and his ex still lived together.  He said that he was trying to be the nice guy since she didn't have a job, her family lived in Jersey, and she had nowhere to go.  Some women, younger and dumber than I was at the time, might think "Oh, he's so sweet to not put her out on the street."  The rest of us, however, immediately have the following thoughts.  He is either:

1) Living in a situation where she is actually NOT the ex and they are still together.
2) Living with his ex and still boinking.
3) An artful combination of both 1 and 2.

I chose to go with Option 2 because it relieved me of the moral quagmire of dealing with a technically involved man.  I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, and believe he was just being a nice guy, but my brain wouldn't let me.  It just wouldn't let me do it.  So I rationalized myself into the lesser of two evils and kept it moving.  I also noticed he did not clarify the category of ex.  Ex-girlfriend or ex-wife?  Eh well.  He was hot.  Whatever.

This all happened in the span of about 25 seconds.  We women make these decisions pretty quickly.

Anyway, Adonis, during dinner/breakfast, also gave me one of those, like, homemade, ratchet business cards saying he was trying to start a business.  If I remember correctly, he was working on a line of sneakers or lingerie for plus sized women.  Maybe sports gear for plus sized women?  I'm a little bit hazy on the details of the charade he had created, but the important thing to remember is that he gave me a card.  With this full name on it.  And phone number.  And email address.  Ladies, you know exactly where I'm going with this.

Investigation.  Straight #sherlockholmes status.

So after our rendezvous that night, I went home and did some research.  And I found the following item:

Yes, and there it is.  He was actually still married; there was no ex.  It was just his wife.  I then did some extra searching, found his address, when he bought and how much he paid for his house, and some other nifty details (he's a "devout" Mason).  I relished the moment when I casually dropped this bomb mentioned this information to him.  It was over sushi at my former favorite Japanese place and he'd had some sake.  I was waiting for just the right moment, because I wanted it to be perfect and I wanted to capture his reaction forever in my mind.  Everything went perfectly and he knew, or at least should have known, that the game had surely changed.  I no longer believed anything he said, even though he continued trying to lie.  Poor thing.

As a random follow up, I noticed (because he and I had become Facebook friends) that a picture with a familiar background popped up in my newsfeed one day.

Most of you may not know me or the places I've lived but that's my former bathroom LOL!  This dude took this selfie in my bathroom, with my bright yellow sink and facial cleansers on the counter LOL!  I found it quite hilarious and promptly posted it on my page for the ridicule it deserved.

Anyway, moving right along.


My reveling in his discomfort probably says more about me than him but so be it.  I enjoy catching people in their lies especially when they make it so very easy.  More importantly, though, I have to wonder why some guys will go out of their way to tell such horrific and easily traceable lies.  I mean, fundamentally, WE DON'T GO TOGETHER.  I have not asked you the questions that would even require such a lie which means you're lying just to be lying.  Just because it sounds good coming out of your mouth and, likely, because you think it's true I want to hear this nonsense.  Like, you think I will like you more if you tell me these stories despite the fact that your behavior and shadiness doesn't give you away.

Sir, you're not as smart as you are good looking you think.

I have a friend who has a friend who was so stealth about her lie tracking abilities that she went to the odometer on her man.  You know how the mafia goes to the proverbial mattresses when things get sticky?  Yeah, she went to the odometer like that.  Apparently it is 20 miles between the home and work, where her man dropped her off.  Somehow, however, when he arrived to pick her up, there were only 18 miles recorded.  So, to recap....

Not only did he recognize that whatever he was doing was wrong, but he knew that he should at least try to rewind the odometer to cover his tracks.

Except his math wasn't that good....so close, yet so far....

Another friend was dealing with this guy we'll call Fuqua.  Fuqua was CONSTANTLY trying to insinuate himself into her social circle, catching an attitude if he wasn't invited to the latest cookout or party, and assuming that every stop in New York meant he would use her place as a hotel visit for the overnight.  Fuqua was friendly enough and made kind of the perfect "+1" if you needed a cool person to laugh at things with.  He certainly wasn't "man" material and there was never any expectation that things would progress beyond where they were.  Except, Fuqua kept behaving in ways that appeared to be contradictory to that entire agreement.

You see, Fuqua had children and one of the cardinal rules, that is clearly and explicitly understood among my group of friends, is that you don't meet kids and/or other family members unless things are really serious.  People obviously need to be vetted by friends, but family is a whole other issue.  So, for all these years, my friend never met dude's family or his kids.  He, however, kept talking like he wanted more but couldn't seem to make his behavior match up.  He would tell her he was into and interested in her and then disappear for months....until he needed a hotel to visit New York.







 But then when my friend would say, clearly you need some time and space to yourself - the time and space he would provide for himself by these self-imposed hiatuses - he would try to swing back into the picture, reinvent the "I'm feeling you and want to spend time together" speech, and the cycle would begin again.  We would all roll our eyes but Fuqua had a lot of jokes.  He was kind of like Kevin Hart if he had all the funny sucked out of him just, umm, maybe not that a little less funny.

Recently, he reached out to do the "Maintenance Hello".  You guys know that contact; where you touch base just in case, later, you want to ignite an old, extinguished flame that should have been thoroughly doused that may still have an ember or two still hot because you're kind of bored the regular contact keeps it smoldering.  Anyway, he reached out a couple of months ago.  My friend responded, and he never responded back. Typical.  But then a picture surfaced on his Facebook page.  This picture was with a woman - a woman who was not, surprise surprise, my homegirl.  The comments on the photo alluded to the fact that he had been in a relationship with this woman for a year; they were celebrating their anniversary.

Oh?






So, you can do this Ember Maintenance with someone you claim you're into all the while you're ACTUALLY in a relationship with someone else?  You'll introduce, apparently, a myriad of women to your children so that assures they'll have a really good understanding of how relationships between men and women work.  Good job, sir.  GTFOHWTBS This, right here, is the level of your fail as a father.



WHYYYY go through the drama?  Guys, at times, will say they don't want drama except for the fact that their lies create the very drama they claim they want to avoid.  We're in the 21st century so women are not always trying to tie somebody down, marry them, and populate the earth with tons of kids.  We're all just trying to find people and/or situations that make us happy and keep our lives in balance.  Lying just really messes all of that up.

Recently, a guy on POF reached out to re-establish contact after inboxing me about a year ago, expressing interest, and then disappearing.  We spoke Friday and were supposed to have brunch today, except - true to form and as predicted - there was no outreach and no brunch.  See, I've gotten to the point where I decide, pretty quickly, if you're full of BS and this dude was SURELY full of it.  The sad, sad part (as I slept through most of the morning until the early afternoon because I had a WICKED game of squash after a killer workout yesterday) is that he really, really thought I believed we were going out.  He got upset when I had that tone of incredulity in our communication around the brunch and he went to great lengths to assure me this time was different.


OF COURSE this time was not different and it only affirmed my notion that dudes lie just to be lying.  And that's a huge problem.  I mean, we've all told a lie before - we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory.  But dang, dudes, ya'll take it to a WHOLE new level.  Like, you are really doing the most.  Not only is it important to you to tell the lie and try to make it convincing, but you insist upon telling the lie until you feel we actually believe you.


The truth is we never believe you.  We always know the truth and we will Sherlock Holmes you, when appropriate, to get to the bottom of things when they sound ridiculous and fishy.  Chances are it is in your ENTIRELY AND WHOLLY best interest to be honest from the door.  It saves everybody a lot of eye rolling and side eye in the future LOL!  Because, at this rate, I don't know how much side eye I have left in me.  My eyes might get stuck like that.